Guided Reading Activity 12-4 the Spread of Protestantism

"Doctrine on Fire:" An Introduction to Protestantism:

One of the about famous works on the origins of Protestantism began with this literary portraiture: "The man who thus called upon a saint was later to repudiate the cult of the saints. He who vowed to become a monk was later to renounce monasticism. A loyal son of the Cosmic Church, he was later to shatter the construction of medieval Catholicism. A devoted servant of the pope, he was later to place the popes with Antichrist. For this young man was Martin Luther."¹

The late Dr. Roland Bainton's magnus opus on the Reformation, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther rightly centers the Protestant organized religion on the extraordinary person of Martin Luther. It is hard to overestimate the importance of Martin Luther (1483-1546) to the Reformation and, thus, to Protestantism. In that location were other of import figures of course. In that location was Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), the Archbishop of Canterbury who compiled the Book of Common Prayer, a notable accomplishment in history which incorporated enough of Scripture into the week-to-week services of the English Reformed Church At that place was, of grade, John Calvin (1509-1564) of Geneva and John Knox (1513-1572) of Scotland. There were bottom-known but quite notable figures of Protestantism such as Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) the priest-turned-pastor of Grossmünster in Zürich. 1 of the almost influential pastors and theologians to shape much of Protestantism also suffers from proper noun recognition: Martin Bucer (1491-1551) of Strasbourg.

Remarkable historical events movements are frequently associated with the remarkable leaders who prompted them. Protestantism is no dissimilar. Whether it is the preeminent names of Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and Thomas Cranmer, or whether other names such as George Whitfield, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Richard Baxter, Thomas Watson, Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, the Rev. Baton Graham, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Dr. D. James Kennedy, or a host of others, there is no denying that certain figures stand out in the history of Protestantism and its standing development. Nevertheless, beyond the leaders, behind the biographies, there was always the idea. "Theology on Fire" was the championship of a J.I. Packer article on the Puritans. Such a title is advisable to introduce the question, "What is Protestantism and Why is it Important?" The answer, in a phrase, is embedded within Dr. Packer's thoughtful phrase. Protestantism is an thought, perhaps fifty-fifty, "an idea on burn down." This "thought on burn," leads the states to consider not merely "a Man" just the "Movement."

Protestantism is a Movement: The History of Protestantism

Protestantism may exist thought of in terms of history, but it is also a affair of the individual laic and her response to God. Protestantism is a motility within the broader Church of our Lord Jesus Christ that is fueled by a preeminent business organization for a personal human relationship with God through Jesus Christ according to Scripture. The theological basis for the relationship is "justification by organized religion, through the grace of God, in Jesus Christ, according to the Scriptures, and all to the glory of God." The v "Solae" articulate the powerful doctrines that fuel the Protestant faith: Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fides, Solus Christus, and Soli Deo Gloria. Carefully followed, the five Solae kept the motion on the "right route, faithful to the Discussion and faithful to the Reformation of the Church."²

Protestantism is both an ecclesial movement of the Church, and a devotional urge within the laic. Historically, that which may exist called "the Protestant faith" emerged from perceived and undeniable abuses within the Roman Catholic Church during the tardily fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries in the British Isles and Northern Europe. The "protests" against both teaching and praxis was non limited to Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anabaptists. Even the Roman Catholic Church responded to the "Protestants" with a "Counter-Reformation" to bring transformation.

The term, Protestantism, remains a historical reality every bit the motility has retained its basic tenets but taken new forms in the Global Due south and the Global East. Protestantism is a personal response to either self, or a specific Christian community, with its basic business organisation for personal salvation through Christ according to the Scriptures The phrase ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (the church reformed, always reforming) is an appropriate description of the heartbeat of the Protestant organized religion for a given community (i.e., a denomination, a local church, or even a national body) also as for the individual.

Nearly ane billion people, at this writing of this commodity, vest to that vital part of the Christian faith called Protestantism. The give-and-take is, of course, from the word "protest." And while "protest" harkens back to Luther—to John Wycliffe of Oxford and John Hus of Bohemia before Luther (and even to other similar leaders and groups before those "morn lights of the Reformation")—the meaning of Protestant was, is, and will, no dubiety, continue to exist, an impulse in the Church for reform. Protestantism that began in England in the fifteen^th century and in Western Europe in the 16^th century was not but nearly reform from undeniable abuses of faith and practice inside the remnant of the medieval Church, that is, the Roman Catholic Church building.

Protestantism Is a Bulletin: The Reformation and Protestantism

As we take said, ane cannot separate Protestantism from Martin Luther. And it follows logically that i cannot split Martin Luther from the Reformation. The Reformation began with "the morning star of the Reformation," John Wycliffe (1320-1384) of Oxford. Wycliffe and his ring of preachers, called Lollards, were concerned that the people of England were non hearing the word of God in the common tongue. Indeed, stained-drinking glass windows and passion plays were the main way that people received the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Middle Ages in England. While this was undoubtedly sufficient in some cases to convert the soul, it was altogether bereft to grow the soul. In this sense, then, the Great Committee was not beingness fulfilled in the British Isles.

So, John Wycliffe set nigh to alter that. He not only preached the Bible in the English linguistic communication of the people, just he as well sent out his Lollards across the country, replacing the traveling passion plays, with evangelistic messages. A fire began to bonfire beyond the realm: the flame of revival.³ This powerful movement was picked up past leaders on the continent. One of those leaders was a Roman Catholic priest by the proper name of John Hus. Hus ministered in Bohemia, the modern Czechia. He preached in the natural language of the people in the advanced doctrines that he found in the Bible such as salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. While Wycliffe and Hus were the morning stars of the Reformation, Martin Luther was the exploding nova of the Reformation. Enlightened of his work building on the labors of those before him, Luther wrote,

"St. John Huss prophesied of me when he wrote from his prison in Bohemia, 'They will roast a goose at present (for 'Huss' means 'a goose'), only after a hundred years they volition hear a swan sing, and him they will endure.'And that is the way information technology will be, if God wills." [LW 34:103]

Dr. Martin Luther was a professor of Bible and theology at Wittenberg when he began to understand the doctrines of grace. Specifically, he found in the book of Galatians that we are not justified by works of the flesh but only by faith. There were other necessary reforms that needed to be fabricated in the Roman church building of the day. Luther prepare out to do merely that with his 95-Theses nailed to the church building door at Wittenberg, a sort of 16th-century Facebook.

Aided by the printing press of Gutenberg, Martin Luther's doctrine begin to spread throughout the continent. Others assimilated the teachings of Luther into their ain national churches. Thus, we see the ministry building of John Calvin in Geneva. Calvin, perhaps more any other reformer of the era, systematized and appropriated the doctrines of grace into the Genevan church building and even the Genevan political, economic, and governmental processes. In this sentence, we see that the Reformation was the explosion of Protestant thought. Information technology is at this point that we should consider what the Protestant thought is fabricated of and how it differs from the Roman Cosmic doctrines of the day.

What is the Biggest Deviation between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism?

Protestant idea centers upon the divine revelation of Almighty God in his word, the Holy Scriptures. Furthermore, Protestantism insists that each and every believer should be grounded in that Word and take access to that Word. Whereas Roman Cosmic clergy performed the service of the Mass with an emphasis upon "Ex opere operato,"from the work worked. Protestant ministers conducted worship services that centered in the Word preached and Sacraments administered according to the faith of the believer. In its most severe interpretation, not altogether unjustified with the land of the medieval Church, this doctrine meant that the efficacy, or ability, of the Sacraments were tied to the activity of the priest. Such a view was repugnant to the renewed spirit of Martin Luther, Calvin, and others. Not simply did this hateful that the Roman Catholic priest reserved a ability that the Reformers ascribed only to Christ, but that the people were dependent upon the Roman priesthood for the dispensing of God'due south grace.

From this ane "protest," the Reformed churches exalted the Word above the 1 who dispensed information technology, whether by preaching or through the Give-and-take fabricated visible, the Sacraments. A thorough systematic theology would follow from this singular idea: that the believer, past virtue of the life, death, resurrection, and ascent of Jesus Christ has essential access to God without the need of a priest.

In that location is continuity and discontinuity from the medieval Roman Church to the modernistic Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church did not remain every bit information technology was. Today's Protestant laic must be careful to recognize the enormous strides fabricated inside the Roman Catholic Church building and the mutual heritage that all Western Christians have. That being said, differences remain on how God'due south grace is appropriated by a believer. Grace comes as a gift in both major Christian groups but is accessed through the "Magisterium" of the Roman Church, the hierarchy of the clergy, or for Protestants through a personal relationship with God through Christ. This deviation has proved to be both a strength and a source of standing dispute within the larger Protestant movement.

Why Are There And then Many Protestant Denominations?

There are two major reasons for Protestant denominations. The outset reason is that if Protestantism is a movement and non a "replacement church" for the existing church of the twenty-four hour period—and nosotros posit that this is precisely what Protestantism is, a move—and then the application and appropriation of this movement must by its own emphases be nationalized. This is to say that Protestantism, with its stress on the preeminence of the Word of God for all that is vital in religion and life, too as the Great Commission being realized by the services of the Church building conducted in the common language of the people, was bound to flourish in national communities. Thus, we see the Dutch Reformed Church building tracing its roots to the Protestant faith coming to the netherlands. Anglicanism and Methodism, Presbyterianism, and Congregationalism, along with Baptists, thrived equally offshoots of the Reformation in the British Isles. Fifty-fifty in the United States, today, the major Protestant dominations and traditions are remnants of British, Dutch, or German settlers who transported their faith beyond the Atlantic Ocean and settled in on the coasts, plains, and mountains of the New Globe.

The other reason for the proliferation of sub-groups within the larger Protestant motility has to exercise with the Protestant doctrinal, if not cultural, instinct. The doctrine that emphasized a personal human relationship with God through Christ, without the necessity of a church building hierarchy, was often used to promote a connected reformation within a Reformation. A central concept of the Reformation had been (and remains) ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (the church reformed, always reforming). However, some, and then and now, employ this individualized tenet of Protestantism to divide from existing communities. Often, the division is consenting and even healthy, giving fifty-fifty more expressions of faith to a community. Other times, the splintering reveals a possible germ of revolt that was embedded within the sons and daughters of Luther.

Evangelicals and Protestantism

It is interesting that as Dr. Martin Luther received his doctorate at Wittenberg Academy, he vowed, with the other graduates, "I swear to defend evangelical truth vigorously." We, thus, run across that "evangelical" was a word already in use by Luther and others well before October 31, 1517 (the date when Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the door at Wittenberg). Evangelical is an English discussion derived from the Greek, Evangel. This good biblical word is 1 employed to describe the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ: that what God has required, God has supplied, in Christ Jesus. This is what Luther vowed to defend, even before his own personal reformation.

Evangelical is, get-go and always, i who declares the Gospel, the Evangel, the Proficient News of Jesus Christ. Protestantism is essentially evangelical in its theology and practice. Protestant idea is concerned with the fulfilling of the Great Committee in the world according to the Scriptures. So, the evangel of God is the living legacy of Protestantism. The phrase became more than particularly associated with enthusiastic movements similar Methodism during the eighteenth-century Wesleyan evangelical revivals and the Get-go Great Enkindling in America with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. The term was increasingly used to depict those Protestants nigh agile in missions, preaching for personal renewal, and for responding to the "cultural mandate" (bringing every expanse of life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ).⁴

Protestantism is a Mosaic

I recall Dr. D. James Kennedy (1930-2007) maxim that the Lord gave united states denominations then that various people can access the Gospel at various stages in life. For example, 1 person is wounded and is drawn to the healing liturgy of the Anglican church building. Some other person has been burned past an autocratic and disciplinarian religious groundwork and is drawn to the representative community life of a Presbyterian church building. Yet, another, destitute and out of place in many suburban churches (however true-blue they may be in trying to welcome him) finds the message of Christ in a Pentecostal street mission. I believe that both biblical truth and our ain experience validate Dr. Kennedy'south exclamation.

I think of the Church, the Helpmate of Christ, like a beautiful mosaic. There are thousands of embedded pieces of divinely wrought glass, every color in the broad spectrum, embedded inside the clay of the earth where we now reside. The cuts are every bit varied equally the colors. To exist sure: at that place is one Calorie-free. Simply equally the Light is dispersed through the prism of our cultures, our communities, and our very lives, a vibrant profusion of organized religion erupts in celestial celebration. This is the Church of our Lord beyond the globe and throughout the ages.

At that place is unity in the variety, commonality in the differences, and a singular faith within the endless saints. This structure and that shape, this shade and that tint, are together—carefully, artfully, providentially—placed into the mosaic. When you stand dorsum you gain perspective. You stride away further. The odd array of colored glass and rock has intention and purpose. For, at present, yous tin see. The mosaic is a movie of Jesus. Some might telephone call me Pollyanna for viewing the Body of Christ this way. But to examine the idea of Protestantism (which may exist in every branch of Christianity), noting its adjustability, consistent growth, and universal appeal is to admit the vitality of Jesus Christ alive in the world today.

Michael A. Milton, PhD (University of Wales; MPA, UNC Chapel Colina; MDiv, Knox Seminary),Dr. Milton is a retired seminary chancellor and currently serves as the James Ragsdale Chair of Missions at Erskine Theological Seminary.  He is the President of Faith for Living  and theD. James Kennedy Plant a long-fourth dimension Presbyterian minister, and Chaplain (Colonel) U.s.a.-R. Dr. Milton is the author of more than thirty books and a musician with five albums released. Mike and his wife, Mae, reside in North Carolina.

Reference Notes

one. Hither I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther  by Roland H. Bainton.
2. "The 'Solas' of the Reformation," The Lutheran Ministerium and Synod-USA  (web log).
3. The English language Reformation  by Arthur Geoffrey Dickens.
iv. The "Cultural Mandate" is most associated with the theological commitments of Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer, and D. James Kennedy. This view has remained a strong role of the Reformed Tradition within Protestantism. The Cultural Mandate is based upon Genesis i:28, "And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue information technology and have dominion.'" An case of viewing globe history through the lens of the Cultural Mandate is found in D. James Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?  (Thomas Nelson, 2008).

Sources

1.World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern Globe AD 1900-2000 by David B. Barrett.
2. The History of Christian Doctrines by Louis Berkhof.
3. Romans: Justification of Faith (Romans ane-4) past J.Yard. Boice.
4.Sermons on Galatians past John Calvin.
5.The Story of Christianity: The Reformation to the Present Twenty-four hour period. Vol. two by Justo L. Gonzales.
6. The Side by side Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins.
7. Galatians by Martin Luther, edited by Alister McGrath and J.I. Packer.
8. Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction by Mark A. Noll.

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This article is role of our Denomination Series list historical facts and theological information virtually different factions within and from the Christian religion. We provide these articles to help you sympathise the distinctions between denominations including origin, leadership, doctrine, and beliefs. Explore the various characteristics of different denominations from our list below!

Cosmic Church: History, Tradition & Beliefs
Baptist Church: History & Beliefs
Presbyterians: History & Beliefs
Mennonites & Their Beliefs
United Methodist Church building: History & Beliefs
Seventh-Solar day Adventists & Their Beliefs
Lutheran History & Behavior

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